Oops, I was going someplace with this. I was just going to say that South Korea has forsaken us. You used to be cool when you played the games I thought were good. Now that you play the games I think are bad, I realized how uncool you actually are.

Wait, gamers who what in college? Smoke pot for the first time? Experiment with lesbianism? Clog the dorm drains with excess ejaculate? Assemble an entire car in the dean's office? The possibilities are endless. Verbs are important, subby!

After watching Free to Play, pro gaming can go fark itself. When pro gamers actually receive a living wage and pay for going out and entertaining a large crowd, but get nothing but bills because they lost, we can talk.

Finally, I actually won almost $4000 in contest money by designing a coaster for Roller Coaster Tycoon III. Considering how many thousands of hours I wasted, spent playing it, that comes out to about 10 cents per hour...

Pichu0102:After watching Free to Play, pro gaming can go fark itself. When pro gamers actually receive a living wage and pay for going out and entertaining a large crowd, but get nothing but bills because they lost, we can talk.

The son of a professor on my thesis committee made a decent living for about two years as a Pro Tour Magic player. Of course his fallback was helping his FLGS sell cards online.

RobSeace:Delta1212: EbolaNYC: It's not an athletic pursuit. Stop calling it a sport.

On the other hand: curling? rifle shooting? horseback riding?

I mean, that last one would qualify if we're considering the horse to be the athlete.

Relevent Carlin routine...

/Don't ask me what that image on the video is about...//This was the first clip of this bit I could find...

Yeah, what is and isn't a sport really depends on what your definition of "sport" is. According to Earnest Hemingway there were only 3 sports; bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering, everything else was just a game. For him, in order for something to be a sport there had to be a serious possibility of death. The definition for sport I see most commonly is "a competition against others that requires physical skill."

Although, I will defend curling as a sport. The rocks weigh 43 pounds apiece, each player throws 20 of them in a game, the sweeping takes a pretty good amount of effort, and it takes a fair amount of coordination to be able to deliver a rock without falling over.

Pichu0102:After watching Free to Play, pro gaming can go fark itself. When pro gamers actually receive a living wage and pay for going out and entertaining a large crowd, but get nothing but bills because they lost, we can talk.

Riot Games (League of Legends) pays each LCS team 175,000 a year. The team also make money from tournament prizes and players from streaming. While this is a far cry from what other pro gamers in the US make, it's still a decent wage.

Oh, just to add, whining over whether people think a video game can be a sport is the least of anyone's worries. The actual problem is that League of Legends is a terrible game and shouldn't be played by anyone, let alone watched by large audiences, let alone called a sport. It's more the notion of calling the game a sport in order to hide the fact the game is crap.

Polish Hussar:Although, I will defend curling as a sport. The rocks weigh 43 pounds apiece, each player throws 20 of them in a game, the sweeping takes a pretty good amount of effort, and it takes a fair amount of coordination to be able to deliver a rock without falling over.

Mike_LowELL:Oh, just to add, whining over whether people think a video game can be a sport is the least of anyone's worries. The actual problem is that League of Legends is a terrible game and shouldn't be played by anyone, let alone watched by large audiences, let alone called a sport. It's more the notion of calling the game a sport in order to hide the fact the game is crap.

In fairness, I pretty much hate any game based on Defense of the Ancients, so I'm just being an equal opportunity partner here. It doesn't take much to figure out why it's a really bad idea to create an action game using an RTS interface and game model as your base. If I want to run around a battlefield slaughtering armies with a comically overpowered champion, I'll play Sacrifice, Guilty Gear 2, Brutal Legend, the Ninety-Nine Nights games, or the Kindgom Under Fire games (sans Circle of Doom) before I get near a Dota game. (Particularly Sacrifice, which almost entirely manifests as a rebuttal of Dota.)

Mike_LowELL:South Korea embraced their inner scrub by fawning all over League of Legends. (And special thanks to Blizzard for pretty much destroying the professional StarCraft scene and making that happen.)

Blizzard is 3/3 on destroying their own games. And League of Legends is a fantastic game; it just has a stupid name and graphics intended to appease a 4 year old. But their business model is what makes the game so big. Anybody can play, for free. And if you want you can give them money to show you support them by buying skins- but they give you no particular advantage in game. The only edge for paying is you can expand your champion pool or rune pages more quickly- but at no point have I felt obligated to give Riot money; I buy a few skins simply because I want to support them and their endeavors. Plus I like watching Cloud 9 roll other teams for free on Twitch. It beats paying monthly for WoW or spending money on the AH.

Other than the fact that I still have yet to play Diablo, I'll most certainly vouch that StarCraft II should be studied as an example of absolutely how to destroy your market share. The destruction of professional StarCraft in South Korea was beautifully awful.

Baumli:And League of Legends is a fantastic game; it just has a stupid name and graphics intended to appease a 4 year old.

The only League has going for it is 1) a very active user base, and 2) the fact the game can actually be learned by simply playing it. (Though I am familiar with the religious devotion that League players have to the "meta", and yes, they should be smacked.) If Dota 2 actually had a comprehensible and consistent rule set, and not a loose collection of game rules vaguely intended to resemble a game world, it'd be the superior game outright. But if I had to go with any Dota game, I'd be more impartial to Demigod, which was at least designed by a company that I have some level of respect for. I just can't care for Dota when there are games which do what Dota does and does them much, much better.

Baumli:And if you want you can give them money to show you support them by buying skins- but they give you no particular advantage in game. The only edge for paying is you can expand your champion pool or rune pages more quickly- but at no point have I felt obligated to give Riot money; I buy a few skins simply because I want to support them and their endeavors.

The issue with is that the game is almost entirely compromising some of the most subtle things that you can do visually--weapons, armor, and items with actual in-game graphics and representation--and have to take a backseat to purchasable skins. Dota games should have players running around with the loot and items they've acquired, but you can't do that if people are paying money for skins. Though as you kind of implied, League is pretty hideous to begin with, so something like this is the least of its worries.

Mike_LowELL:The issue with is that the game is almost entirely compromising some of the most subtle things that you can do visually--weapons, armor, and items with actual in-game graphics and representation--and have to take a backseat to purchasable skins. Dota games should have players running around with the loot and items they've acquired, but you can't do that if people are paying money for skins. Though as you kind of implied, League is pretty hideous to begin with, so something like this is the least of its worries.

So, what you're really saying about LoL is that ... it insists upon itself.

jonny_q:So, what you're really saying about LoL is that ... it insists upon itself.

*looks up meaning of "insists upon itself"*

Yeah, that works. A pro scene or a "competitive" scene does not mean your game is good, but that's precisely why Riot pushes the tournaments. They're not just great marketing, they're a great propaganda tool.

Mike_LowELL:Oh, just to add, whining over whether people think a video game can be a sport is the least of anyone's worries. The actual problem is that League of Legends is a terrible game and shouldn't be played by anyone, let alone watched by large audiences, let alone called a sport. It's more the notion of calling the game a sport in order to hide the fact the game is crap.

I fully support and endorse this statement. I have some friends that poured massive amounts of money into this head of crap. After trying the game, I felt it was extremely bland and nothing worth of note. Of course it is worse if you just watch it instead of play it. Overall a terrible game that does not deserve the praise it gets.

mr.doctor:Mike_LowELL: Oh, just to add, whining over whether people think a video game can be a sport is the least of anyone's worries. The actual problem is that League of Legends is a terrible game and shouldn't be played by anyone, let alone watched by large audiences, let alone called a sport. It's more the notion of calling the game a sport in order to hide the fact the game is crap.

I fully support and endorse this statement. I have some friends that poured massive amounts of money into this head of crap. After trying the game, I felt it was extremely bland and nothing worth of note. Of course it is worse if you just watch it instead of play it. Overall a terrible game that does not deserve the praise it gets.

I think LoL is a great game, however the players remind me of the people I used to mute when playing FPS's like Call of Duty. It allows for casual solo play, casual play with friends, and more competitive playing once you start playing against human opponents. And, making it free to play, along with the rotating champions, besides skins, is a great way to stop people from just buying their way to good.

Mike_LowELL:jonny_q: So, what you're really saying about LoL is that ... it insists upon itself.

*looks up meaning of "insists upon itself"*

Yeah, that works. A pro scene or a "competitive" scene does not mean your game is good, but that's precisely why Riot pushes the tournaments. They're not just great marketing, they're a great propaganda tool.

The game is addictive as all hell, but you're right it's not very good.

I think the forty minute-hour long games play into the reward triggering of the brain somehow. The number of people I see on other sites that say "I hate this game. Why do I play it?" is absurd.

As many (or more) people play it compulsively as play it because they enjoy it, and I think that ratchets up the terrible, hateful playerbase that the game has.